Judith Kelly Quaempts
The Gift
We were four, maybe five,
two little girls saying goodbye.
We had no words for all we were feeling.
We could have cried, but didn’t.
We could have hugged, but didn’t.
We could have—we didn’t.
Before she walked away,
Anna pulled a chestnut from my grandmother’s tree.
She rubbed it against her dress until it glowed.
Keep this forever, she said.
Remember me.
Judith Kelly Quaempts lives and writes in rural eastern Oregon. Her short stories and poems appear online and in print, most recently in Windfall A Journal of Poetry and Place, Women’s Voices Anthology (A Publication of These Fragile Lilacs Press), and Crafty Poet II A Portable Workshop (Terrapin Press).
The Gift
We were four, maybe five,
two little girls saying goodbye.
We had no words for all we were feeling.
We could have cried, but didn’t.
We could have hugged, but didn’t.
We could have—we didn’t.
Before she walked away,
Anna pulled a chestnut from my grandmother’s tree.
She rubbed it against her dress until it glowed.
Keep this forever, she said.
Remember me.
Judith Kelly Quaempts lives and writes in rural eastern Oregon. Her short stories and poems appear online and in print, most recently in Windfall A Journal of Poetry and Place, Women’s Voices Anthology (A Publication of These Fragile Lilacs Press), and Crafty Poet II A Portable Workshop (Terrapin Press).